BirdForum is the net's largest birding community, dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE! You are most welcome to register for an account, which allows you to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Birdforum Main Policy

BirdForum is about the enjoyment and appreciation of WILD birds and other WILDLIFE. Please help us keep BirdForum wild.
Please - no discussions relating to hunting, pigeon racing, the keeping of caged birds, captive birds or falconry.

Abuse / Flaming / Derogatory Comments

Abusive Comments, Flaming, or derogatory insults or comments are strictly against the rules. If you disagree with another memberās point of view, do so in a mature and civil manner. If someone posts to discuss their personal problems or seeks help from other forums members, please do not respond unless you have something positive or helpful to add. If you find yourself being flamed or insulted by another member, please do not dignify that person with a response. Notify a moderator and let us handle it. If you feel you must respond to a flame or insult directly, please do NOT do so on the board. Use Private Messaging, but make sure you do NOT threaten any member. Private Messages are just that 'Private', do not disclose details of a private message in public without permission of the sender.

Only one account/identity per person. Anyone found to be using more than one identity for mischievous purposes is likely to find themselves without any account at birdforum. We tend to merge new accounts into old ones, so if you post something controversial with a second account, it could end up in tears for you. You will be found out if you do it!
If you have an account issue, please contact admin via the 'contact us' form at the bottom of any BF page.

Promotion & Advertising

Our primary focus is building and nurturing the community. We respect that every forum has their own unique qualities of good and bad, however we ask that you do not use the website to promote other commercial outdoor or outdoor-related discussion forums or websites without express permission from the administrators.

Conversely we ask that you do not use this site to bad-name or depreciate any other site or community. In return, we also ask that you do not use other related forums to advertise for BirdForum. This makes for an overall more fair, healthy and friendly environment.

Links to other non-commercial or personal websites can be placed in signatures, and in the say hello forum as part of your introduction. You may, obviously, post a direct link to an outside site given that the information is RELEVANT to a question someone else has requested, or you believe it will be helpful to others. If we feel your signature link leads to a website liable to cause bad feeling amongst our membership and disrupt the friendly atmosphere on our website, we will remove it. eg. a website where trophy hunting is a feature.

If you wish to advertise a service or product you can contact our advertising team on advertise@birdforum.net and they will try their hardest to help you.

Users who sign up purely to promote their own websites, services, products or those with SEO motives will be banned immediately and their posts deleted. Users who contribute regularly might not be banned on first offence, at the discretion of the staff. Persistence will lead to your IP address being banned from our system and a report being filed with your internet service provider.

Spamming & Cross Posting

Spamming and Cross Posting is defined as posting the same information or content (full or partial) in two or more posts. We understand that some topics might fit into more than one forum or category but we ask that you please pick the best one and stick with it. Members found to be spamming will be warned the first time and additional posts will be removed. Repeat offenders may have their posting privileges suspended or revoked.

New Member Restrictions

In an attempt to prevent certain abuses of our site, new members have a handful of minor restrictions placed upon them until they have made 10 forum posts (gallery comments do not count) AND have been a member of the site for 5 days. The following minor restrictions apply to new members who have not qualified with the above criteria, i.e. Creating a signature, creating a blog, editing Opus, creating a 'For Sale' thread and voting in polls.

Language & Profanity

Posts to be conducted in English language only please.

While we understand the majority of members are grown adults, we do have young adults and children that visit BirdForum. Further, many people are offended by vulgar language. If you feel you must swear to get your point across, please censor your language appropriately so as to not be overly offensive. (e.g., āS***!ā) Replacing one or two letters in an expletive by using ASCII characters (! For I, etc) is not an acceptable solution. Abuse of this rule will lead to your posting privileges being suspended.

Attitude to Moderators and Administrators

Posting a thread or reply to question or criticize moderator or administrator action is not appropriate in a public forum. Please utilize the boardās Private Message function, or email, if you wish to discuss these issues. As long as you bring up your concerns maturely and civilly to the moderator or administrator in question, we will do our best to address your concerns fairly and promptly.

Bring up your concerns in a mature and respectful manner. If you are contacting us because you violated forum guidelines, be adult enough to admit your mistake. If your ID has been locked for some reason, talking politely to us about it in private, via e-mail or private message, can get your ID reinstated in many cases.

All we ask is that you treat us the way you would want us to treat you. If you treat us with respect, we will do the same for you.

Copyright

As with the Birdforum gallery, all photos uploaded to the forums, are the property of the original photographer and must not be reproduced in any format without the express written permission of the photographer.

The Birdforum Opus-Bird Database

If you do upload a photo to the forums, it may be used to represent a species in the Birdforum Opus/Bird Database or elswhere on a free to view birdforum project, where you will be aknowledged. This does not effect your rights of ownership and as with all your photos, they will be removed upon your request to admin or a moderator.